PicsArt Photo is free application for Android that allows you to edit, enhance, and add special effects to your photos. Since it runs on your phone, you can manipulate your photos right after taking them, or you can upload them from your computer to the phone.

With a small memory footprint, external storage options, as well as a ton of different ways to work with your images, PicsArt is loaded with value for no cost.

As mobile operating systems get more and more complex with more capabilities, the proliferation of apps that you can download has exploded. For most types of applications, there are tons of programs you can buy and download to your phone.

Everything from calendar apps to language translators to word processors, there seems to be multiple options for nearly anything you’d want to do. That means that, as the technology progresses, the capabilities of your desktop system, your laptop, and your mobile device get closer and closer to being the same. That being the case, one of the first things I have looked for is a free way to handle my photos and other images directly on my phone, since Photoshop is one of my favorite desktop programs.

PicsArt Photo Studio is a complete package of photo and image tools right on your Android. Almost anything you can do with a desktop image suite like Photoshop, you can do with PicsArt, if in a more limited fashion. You can, of course, manage all your files, including the ability to edit or create new files and change existing file names, but that is just the very beginning of what PicsArt has to offer. When you first load into the main menu for PicsArt Studio, you’re given two basic options for what you want to work with. You can either load and work on an existing image that is stored on your memory card or internally on the phone, or you can create a whole new image file using either the camera attached to your Android or one of the different drawing applications that PicsArt Studio has. For example, you could use the PicsArt Drawing tool to doodle a smiley face on a blank background and save that as a new file.

Once you have decided which image you want to work with, you’ve got an absolutely staggering amount of option as to what you want to do with it. There are tools for simple things like changing contrast or color balance, as well as more complex options like adding text to an image. The text tool, in particular, is quite impressive for such a small, portable program. There are options to change the size, color, and format of your text including such basics like bold, oblique and italics. There is also a tutorial that gives information on how to load your own, custom fonts into the Studio so you can put floating text into your image in any font you like. These kinds of little touches to the different editing options are rampant throughout the program and they really show that the developers put a great deal of effort and thought into it.

One of the tools that is the most fun to use in PicsArt is the FX tool, which basically takes the place of ‘filters’ or special effects layers in the larger, desktop programs. You can do things like change the entire image to black and white, sepia tone, or even that nifty Sin City look where everything is greyscale except for a certain color, like red. An image of a red rose laying on a black and white background of other grass and flowers, for example, is very easy to make with the FX module in PicsArt.

Additionally, PicsArt Studio has tons of options for uploading and downloading of images to and from the different social networks, like Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Dropbox, Fouresquare, Tumblr, Blogger and WordPress. You can even send or receive images through email, using PicsArt Studio. This is an impressive and much needed feature that is severely lacking in many other apps of this type, including ones that you have to pay for. PicsArt is free, powerful, and fun to use. Add the easy, user friendly interface and the social networking options, and PicsArt comes out head and shoulders above most other mobile imaging applications, in my opinion.

A few notes:

There are extras modules as well, like Kaleidoscope, Liquid Face, and Viewer. All free as well.

The PicsArt home page allows you to set up and account to share your images online and connect them with Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Until next time, my friends!

Check out PicsArt Studio for Android OS 1.6 and up here. Or download PicsArt directly from Google Play (Android Market) here.

B.C. Tietjens

Born and raised overseas in a military family, B.C. Tietjens visited and lived in many places all over the world. He has worked on a number of publications and enjoys writing for different audiences, on such diverse subjects as relationships, technology, prestidigitation, self-improvement, entertaining children, and biographical stories. He currently writes primarily for Freewaregenius and enjoys the heck out of it.

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